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Searching for Mathmagicland... | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
[new] Start with a CC perhaps? (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by halewis on Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 09:10:29 AM PDT

I've been thinking about this question, and it seems to me that one place to start would be with community college. I'm suggesting this mostly out of financial considerations -- it sounds like you already have a BS or BA, but I know a lot of 2-year schools offer upper level mathematics classes, so that you could go at least half-way towards a mathematics degree [in terms of math classes] by trying out a couple classes at a time. This would also give you a chance to see if you tend to like the pure math classes, or maybe you particularly like applications or statistics, and you might be able to work your job around it. You could also try this just for a semester, and then if it turns out that it's exactly what you're looking for you could jump into it full-time.

Our school offers a math degree for people who already have their bachelor's, but I think it's just for certification [post-baccalaureate certification, or PBC] -- people take the math classes that they need but didn't take as undergraduates, and also education classes so that they end up cerfied to teach middle and high school in New York. I think, though, that these PBC programs at one time were being phased out because all teachers have to get a Masters Degree within 5 years, so people get certified while doing their MA. I don't know of programs that pick up classes without the certification, but it ought to be able to be done on a course-by-course basis.

About your age -- 26 seems young to me! I don't think that should be a concern at all. Look at it this way -- while it's stardard to get a PhD in 6" or 7 years, I know people who took 12-13 years to do it, so they end up with a graduate degree at about the same time age-wise that you would! And as -- was it Dear Abby or Ann Landers? -- as one of those woman said once when someone wanted to go to Medical School, but it would take 8 years and they would be 45 when they finished with school, "And how old will you be in 8 years if you DON'T do it?"



Searching for Mathmagicland... | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)
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